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Keeping Score: MTT on Music is a major initiative of the San Francisco Symphony aimed at offering audiences of today a connection to classical music and the powerful emotions it conveys.

Beethoven's Third Symphony "Eroica," or the "Heroic," literally turned classical music on its head. Composing the first-ever symphonic autobiography, Beethoven laid bare his dreams, his fears, and, at its climax, his rediscovered heroism. From his early musical rivalries in Vienna to the terrifying realization of his increasing deafness, Beethoven reveals the roots of his genius in this episode of Keeping Score. Never before had music dared to paint so personal a portrait. Follow Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony as they delve deep into the psyche of one of western civilization's greatest artists, reading between the notes of his favorite work.

Keeping Score: MTT on Music is a major initiative of the San Francisco Symphony aimed at offering audiences of today a connection to classical music and the powerful emotions it conveys.

In 1827, Berlioz saw Harriet Smithson for the first time, playing Ophelia in a production of Hamlet . Hopelessly smitten, he turned his entire life upside down to meet her. Frantic months turned into years when he suddenly heard rumors about Harriet and another man. Believing himself cured, he wrote a "fantastic" symphony complete with a special theme, the idee fixe , to represent his former obsession.

Keeping Score: MTT on Music is a major initiative of the San Francisco Symphony aimed at offering audiences of today a connection to classical music and the powerful emotions it conveys.

Explore the sights, sounds and influences that brought Copland to write music that gave Americans a sense of their own identity and created a truly American sound. With excerpts from the original 13-instrument version of Appalachian Spring .

Keeping Score: MTT on Music is a major initiative of the San Francisco Symphony aimed at offering audiences of today a connection to classical music and the powerful emotions it conveys.

Coming of age at the dawn of the twentieth century, Charles Ives saw the halcyon days of his youth fading fast. Not willing to let them go, he invented a striking new musical language to enshrine the feelings and ideals of a simpler time. But many, shocked by passages like the "fireworks" in Fourth of July , found his new-fangled methods at odds with the memories he was trying to preserve. Did Ives go too far? Or did he succeed in turning his memories into music?

From the sound outside his bedroom window - a kind of sonic goulash of military marches, ethnic dance bands, church bells, ritual prayer, and nature itself, Gustav Mahler created an entire universe of emotion in music. In an astonishingly productive twenty-five years, he fashioned ten symphonies and 45 songs of cosmic scale, great beauty, and jarring emotional twists and turns. And he did it all in the brief moments he could spare from his day jobs as one of Europe's preeminent conductors.

In Gustav Mahler: Origins and Legacy , Michael Tilson Thomas returns to the provincial Austro-Hungarian city of Mahler's childhood, and bears witness to his grand achievements, great sorrow, and daring musical explorations into the dephths of the human sould. Join MTT and the San Francisco Symphony as they trace Mahler's rise as a young conductor, and show how his stormy inner life inspired new and ever-more heartbreaking heights of creativity.

Keeping Score: MTT on Music is a major initiative of the San Francisco Symphony aimed at offering audiences of today a connection to classical music and the powerful emotions it conveys.

In 1937 Russia, at the height of Stalin's purges, the Communist Party strongly denounced Dmitri Shostakovich's most recent works. Fearing for his life, the young composer wrote a symphony ending with a rousing march. But to many, the triumph rang hollow. Even today, people wonder just what Shostakovich was trying to say. Was the symphony meant to celebrate Stalin's regime? Or did it contain hidden messages protesting the very system it seemed to support?

Keeping Score: MTT on Music is a major initiative of the San Francisco Symphony aimed at offering audiences of today a connection to classical music and the powerful emotions it conveys.

Savage, hypnotic, and hell-bent, Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring set off a shock wave that turned Paris's Theatre des Champs-Elysees into the scene of one of the most astounding opening nights in history. The raucous rebellion Stravinsky's score started burst first onto the stage. As the dancers and the music pushed past civilized limits, the audience, astounded, pushed back. "Keep going no matter what!" the conductor was told, but they didn’t expect a riot! In this episode of Keeping Score, the tendrils of Stravinsky's music pull us back through France and Russia to pagan times. Join Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony as they celebrate the wild abandon unleashed by The Rite of Spring.

Keeping Score: MTT on Music is a major initiative of the San Francisco Symphony aimed at offering audiences of today a connection to classical music and the powerful emotions it conveys.

Experience Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36 in his own words. Learn about the events and influences that defined his character, his career, and his genius. See and hear the instruments of the orchestra that Tchaikovsky used in his music.

Hosted by author Amy Tam and performed before an audience at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco on September 7, 2011, the San Francisco Symphony performs works by Copland, Mendelssohn, Britten and John Adams. Celebrating their 100 years with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and guest violin Itzak Perlman, the program also includes vignettes documenting the Symphony's history.